POLITICAL COLUMN

Fools on the Hill

To call what happened on Capitol Hill over the past few days Kabuki is to insult Kabuki. What actually happened was more like ancient farce when actors used to come out and hit each other over the head with socks full of cowpies.

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Contrary to what you have heard, we did not face up to a financial or economic or budgetary crisis. All Congress and the White House did was slog through another political crisis.

And the way they did it was comical: a 2 a.m. vote in the Senate followed by an 11 p.m. vote in the House. This is drive-by government.

That the White House was going to win was never in doubt. Barack Obama won reelection in November by nearly 5 million votes. According to CBS News, his approval rating is at 57 percent.

The members of Congress, on the other hand, are close to being put in stocks and pelted with vegetables. According to CBS, congressional job approval is at 11 percent. Any lower than that and Congress might as well move to Canada and try there.

One of the reasons our politicians are held in such low regard is that what they do is so divorced from reality.

What was the No. 1 issue of the last election? What did both sides promise the American people? As I recall, it was jobs, jobs and more jobs. But what did the recent fiscal cliff law do about creating more jobs? Nothing.

Some politicians like nothing. Nothing is why they went to Washington. They want to shrink government, in the famous words of Grover Norquist, “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Why? Because as Mitt Romney said in the campaign, 47 percent of voters “believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”

(If you haven’t heard much from Romney since the election, it’s probably because he has been down in the Cayman Islands visiting his money.)

In this view, the government spends far too much on “entitlements” like Medicare. Medicare costs are strangling America, we hear, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, spending for Medicare in 2012 was a very hefty $555 billion.

But Medicare recipients are not exactly rolling in dough. In 2006, the last study my ace research team (Wikipedia) could find, the “average household income of Medicare enrollees was $22,600 compared with a U.S. median income of $48,201.”

Yet these people are viewed as greed-heads sucking up precious dollars that could be better spent on … defense contractors!

Readers' Comments (17)

If the defense sector is so worried about losing jobs, why don't they retool to actually do things that the economy actually needs? Like bridges ( Brent Spence, I'm looking at you), which in theory they are supposed to be good at after all that frakking BlackWaterPrivateContractor money thrown their way. If they can't, send it to engineering companies that really can do the job and people can retrain. Free market, right? ;-) Why not some commerce, industry and infrastructure for a change?

"Unfortunately, Obama has been playing a waiting game on fiscal issues ever since he became president. He didn’t formulate a plan for long-term solvency partly because he didn’t want to give up the political weapon of Social Security before the 2012 election; he didn’t fully embrace the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan for the same reason. “Too early,” said his aides. He didn’t talk honestly about the deficit problem during the campaign, either. And although Obama finally offered in last month’s discussions with Boehner to revise the cost-of-living adjustment to Social Security, he retreated after the Plan B debacle.

Let’s assume it was tactically smart for Obama to play politics with the deficit issue through the campaign. Having won, Obama should quickly have taken the high ground and urged the fiscal reforms that every thoughtful member of his team knows are necessary. Instead, he chose the small-bore approach of continuing to focus almost entirely on his campaign pledge that tax rates had to go up for the wealthiest Americans. Okay, he got that. Now what?"

This is what we have come to! This is the Obama legacy. What a huge disappointment!

I am going to ignore the Senate for now but lets focus on the House. The real problem is Gerrymandering.

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That is complete BS. The problem is NOT gerrymandering. That concept was something that was hyped in the early 1900's. And while it had some prevalence at that time, it is totally irrelevant today. The people you are quoting from are idiots who deserve no recognition and even less attention.

Red states are red because they have conservative voters. And in many of those states, the DOJ monitors they apportionment of voting districts and their plans CANNOT be impelemented without DOJ approval (and the Obama DOJ reviewed all district apporltionment in the latest census in all states that formally were referred to as the "Old South", so none of those are "gerrymandered" except to ensure that there are districts set aside to ensure that minorities can be elected (thus they are likely "blue" districts that otherwise would not exist). Dem "blue" states gerrymander just as much or more that red states. Maryland wrote two red districts out of existence. California gerrymandered at least four out of existence. Other blues states did likewise (including NY and PA).

Despite gerrymandering, much of the last 60 years has shown the Dems to be in control of the House (the only federal body that is influenced by alleged gerrymandering). And despite the gerrymandering of the past, the Republicans managed to take control of the House BEFORE the census results from 2010 were published and influenced reapportionment to "gerrymander" any districts whatsoever!

Any person who thinks the trouble with our nation can be traced to gerrymandering is a complete and utter fool!

How will they work that? After just agreeing that those making over $400 K are rich, and the rest are "middle class", how will the find new tax revenues to soak the rich? Will they simply go back to "OK let's raise the death tax, more taxes on capital gains again, and lower the "rich' definition to $250 K" again? Is that the scenario they will push after celebrating their historic compromise?

That looks more like "bait and switch" if you do it again this year or next. No one will be fooled. That is like agreeing to the price of a new car, and then seeing the dealership add in "dealer prep", transportation, waxing, unercoating, delivery, carrying fees, inventory restoration charges, etc that increases the cost by another 10%-20%.

Dems may be able to get away with attacking the rich again in the 2014 election, but it is unlikely they can replay that song and dance again this year after their "historic compromise" where the President claimed "final victory". And Obama did that while intrducing a whole series of tax loopholes for corporations into his "tas the rich" bill.

We have "balance" on the taxing the rich side, not it is time to get balance on the cost cutting side.

Simon says the “average household income of Medicare enrollees was $22,600 compared with a U.S. median income of $48,201.”

My city is surrounded by casinos. Any time I poke my head in the place is filled with white heads, handicapped, some with canes nearby, many smoking, many lined up together in rows at the machines with a few chairs turned towards the machine to hold their spot, but what told a truer story was the ROWS upon rows of handicap parking spaces filled with late model cars. Please don't cry me a river Simon on how bad off those on Medicare or Medicaid are - look around for yourself as they seem to manage quite well on their entitlement funds.

Both sides were in favor of the Bush tax cuts except for a couple of percent on the top. The top earners didn't even care since they still have their loopholes and deductions. Raising the debt limit or not even changing it's trajectory, is a fait accompli. Special interests slurpimg at the Federal trough, Federal employees, entitlements including the new Obamacare will smother Washington if they even try.

tehe3 The only fool around here is YOU and anybody who goes around calling people fools when having rational discussions is usually the biggest fool of all. You take that award today moron. Go crawl back under your tea bagger hole and disappear please. We don't need the likes of you trying to destroy the nation. Gerrymandered districts are a problem, and no this has nothing to do with the 1990s. These districts, many of which were created before 2010, are a problem and many are in purple states and even blue states. Some of these districts were gerrymandered in the 1990, some the past few years but ALWAYS they are a problem. Its also been a tactic far more abused by Republican losers than Democrats. Now its all crashing down on them as their fear of tea party primary morons is the only fear they have. Well over 100 Republican districts have been gerrymandered in this manner.

What I find interesting is that the biggest recipients of welfare are the members of congress. They really live on the dole of our money. We pay their salaries,benefits,part of their healthcare,perks and pensions.They are the real welfare kings and queens. These guys made a big deal about working through the night. I did that for 60 years plus many weekends as did the people who worked with me. It’s no wonder they spend millions of dollars and half their time just running for reelection. Heaven forbid they have to go out and look for a real job. I think I deserve my social security and medicare. I earned it..Show me one member of congress that ever worked that long and hard. Ship of Fools indeed.

Excellent points as usual! \without drastically reducing expenses related to the military-industrial complex, America, for the foreseeable future, will never be able to get its financial house in order. Politicians like to pick on the poor, the elderly and other weak people while they keep padding the Pentagon even with weapons and money they don't need. There are so many generals with very little results--how can one explain why a superpower is unable to defeat rag-tag armies of the Taliban and Al-Quada with no drones, military planes, sophisticated spy apparatus and analysts, etc? There is so much corruption in Pentagon and war-related expenses. It comes in so many forms, to mention just a few: generals with their army of entourage, military contractors over-billing the government, even selling a 2 cent pencil for $17 a piece, continued use and production of obsolete weapons, nation-building fiasco, etc. This country is in trouble!

Excellent analysis. As one voter to another, I'm really weary of being scared to death by what is going on in Congress. I'm somewhat relieved that the cliff hanger on Capitol Hill has at least avoided disaster, but I have no higher hopes that the new congress will bring with them and prospects for the way our elected legislators. Having said that I have to admit that we the voters elected these people. So like Harry Truman famously said, we as voters should think long and hard about the quality of the people we are sending to Congress and act accordingly.

tehe3 The only fool around here is YOU and anybody who goes around calling people fools when having rational discussions is usually the biggest fool of all. You take that award today moron. Go crawl back under your tea bagger hole and disappear please. We don't need the likes of you trying to destroy the nation. Gerrymandered districts are a problem, and no this has nothing to do with the 1990s. These districts, many of which were created before 2010, are a problem and many are in purple states and even blue states. Some of these districts were gerrymandered in the 1990, some the past few years but ALWAYS they are a problem. Its also been a tactic far more abused by Republican losers than Democrats. Now its all crashing down on them as their fear of tea party primary morons is the only fear they have. Well over 100 Republican districts have been gerrymandered in this manner.

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I laid out a very thorough, concise, and logical case for why people who blame gerrymandeering for our problems are simply spouting inanities.

Now you come along and offer additional evidence of why I was correct!

It is not that social security and medicare recipients are living high off the hog. It is that there are so many of them (the baby boom generation), that their good health care is allowing them to live longer, and that those latter few years of life tend to be riddled with medical expenses that are very costly.

Just this last year we reached the tipping point where folks will take out of social security and medicare more than what they paid in. Even the CBO recognizes that there is a true fiscal cliff awaiting regarding those unfunded costs.

Reform of medicare and social security will have to occur. Just because a handful of people point that out does not make them extremists or wreckers of our social safety net. It makes them prudent.

So far, I have heard only a few Democrats willing to admit these facts, preferring to demagogue and deny the coming problems in elder care for political gain today, rather than educate their constituents to that reality. That is as unproductive as is the attitude of some Republicans who see the coming crisis as an opportunity to rid government of that social responsibility. One should, rather, encourage those bipartisan voices--including President Obama--who are beginning to consider the kind of reforms that will be necessary to save social security and medicare, rather than berate them as you have just done.

tehe3 The only fool around here is YOU and anybody who goes around calling people fools when having rational discussions is usually the biggest fool of all. You take that award today moron. Go crawl back under your tea bagger hole and disappear please. We don't need the likes of you trying to destroy the nation. Gerrymandered districts are a problem, and no this has nothing to do with the 1990s. These districts, many of which were created before 2010, are a problem and many are in purple states and even blue states. Some of these districts were gerrymandered in the 1990, some the past few years but ALWAYS they are a problem. Its also been a tactic far more abused by Republican losers than Democrats. Now its all crashing down on them as their fear of tea party primary morons is the only fear they have. Well over 100 Republican districts have been gerrymandered in this manner.

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Only an idiot would dispute my facts and logic with personal attacks!

Dude..................gerrymandering is REQUIRED BY LAW to ensure minority representation in Congress.

The DOJ enforces it. And this DOJ prohibited gerrymandering in many red states because they interpreted the recommended district boundary modifications would disadvantage minority Democrats. Meanwhile, gerrymandering DID take place in most blue states to force out elected Republcians. Thems simply the facts. That is the only reason why the Dems picked up more seats in 2012 despite the fact that blue states lost seats in Congress and red states actually gained seats.

When you gerrymander some districts to ensure minority representation, it forces other districts to also be gerrymander since they are mirror images of the minority gerrymandering based upon population and geography demographics. I gave you specific cases of blue states that gerrymandered to block Republicans from being elected. And the above link shows where the DOJ engages in monitoring red states to block gerrymandering except to benefit Democrats.

Mr. Simon omits to mention that the trillions of our tax dollars that go to the "Defense" Department are almost never used to *defend* anything. Every single significant US military action in my 66-year lifetime has involved the invasion of another country.